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Saturday, 24 February 2007

So I just saw Hot Fuzz for the second time, I'll be wandering around for days randomly saying "Cornetto?" ... If you haven't seen it yet, don't worry, it's not really a spoiler. It's seriously recommended if you like Shaun of the Dead, obviously, it has the same humour and light-heartedness about it. But I will say that there is a reason it's a 15!

I went to see it with Dan, my good buddy Dan, and some of his family, because I'm going to be living with them as of tomorrow! Which is very exciting. I was a bit nervous though, which made me go a bit quiet and stuff... Not excessively so, I mean, I doubt they would have noticed, but I did.

Problem is, just as I was starting to get over my nerves, I saw Jamez. With some skinny blonde chick. He waved at me and I sort of nodded back, thinking that I couldn't go talk to him because I wanted to swear and punch him in the face. Obviously, by the time that desire works its way through several layers of Englishness, it's translated into merely not hugging him. Or maybe an awkward handshake. And nobody wants to see that happen, do they.

No, no, he's not an ex. It was never as concrete as that. Far more complicated. But it doesn't matter, I wish him well, I really do.

Wednesday, 21 February 2007

When my mum left her last job, she was given some very expensive Gucci bath stuff and perfume that she then gave to me, saying she'd never use it. So I've been wearing it lately and smelling very expensive, which is always fun! However, I have had to resist the urges to totter around in high heels going "Yeahs, it's Gucci, dahling, Gucci, fwafwafwah" (which of course posh people do ALL THE TIME). Now all I've got to do is find someone to smell nice at.

Anyway, in case you're interested, I'm feeling a lot better now. Still working on it, but more positive generally... probably because the sky was blue today. That makes an insanely huge difference.

Sunday, 18 February 2007

Ok, I'd like to say straight away that I don't believe in 'confession' through a priest. I don't think it's necessary. People can talk directly to God, but this post is going to serve as a bit of a confession for reasons I'll explain later.

I haven't been doing too well with the old religion thing. Um. It's completely my own fault; I haven't been reading my Bible, I've been cramming in prayer before I go to sleep (which is regularly after 3am), I've been skipping breakfast, all sorts of terrible things. The result of which is that I've been starving myself spiritually.

It's all very well asking for your daily bread, but when you're too weak to reach out and take it... I'm going to start praying for daily IV drip.

I woke up this morning desperate for grace. I went to church longing for something, whatever it is, hoping that maybe the problem would get sorted somehow.

But instead, INSTEAD I get a complete SOUL-BASHING from a 21st century PHARISEE. Ugh. Sorry, sorry, I know that's really strong, but I'm not exaggerating when I say that I cried through most of the sermon this morning. The speaker was telling us how some men are given the gift of teaching, and that if we really love God, we'll follow His laws. For someone who was already feeling low, that was all it took to reduce me to an emotional wreck. If I'd been feeling totally secure in my walk with God, maybe it would have made me feel very self-righteous - but that's not ideal either, really, is it.

I made a terrible congregation member after that. I kept muttering bad words under my breath, and had to actually stop myself from shouting out in disagreement when he asserted that "the Bible is sufficient". He's truly one of those who believe in the Father, the Son and the Holy Bible. I NEED Spirit.

One of the other cliches that gets thrown about sometimes is "All Spirit and no Word, you burn up, all Word and no Spirit, you dry up, Word and Spirit, you grow up." Well I'm all doctrined out. I know a lot about the theology. Now please, PLEASE, can I experience some of it for myself?

So as I said, with all this on my mind, getting through to God has been tricky. So you guys are going to have to be my confessional, if that's ok with you.Hi, my name is Anna, and I'm a crap Christian.

Friday, 16 February 2007

For those of you who don't know, for this gap year I'm living with a host family. I've spent 6 months with this family, and they've been very good to me, but now it's time for me to move on. (I got sick of them? They got sick of me? No. Just moving on, that's all.)

So tonight, I went to have a meal with my new host family, just to 'check'. They're all very lovely indeed. Funny thing is, people have been asking me if I know Bridget, and every time I say "No, no I don't, I don't know ANYONE called Bridget" and then I saw her tonight and I just went (in my head) "OH MY GAWSH IT'S BRIDGET."

Bridget was one or two years above me in high school, and she did drama, so I was thoroughly in awe of her. I still remember her immortal line in Oh What A Lovely War, "I'm RUSSIAN!" See, it's not a funny line, until she says it. Genius. So I was there at the dinner table going slightly embarrassed and quiet, thinking about the play and wondering if there was any cool way of reminding her who I am. But since I doubt she'd remember me, the answer to that is a resounding No.

Ah yes, children, I know it's hard to believe but I wasn't always cool. No, really. I used to be antisocial, aggressive, unconfident, and introverted. Hard to believe when you bear in mind the person I have blossomed into... *cough* Sorry, I can't even TYPE that with a straight face. Seriously, though, I've changed quite a lot even since I left school less than a year ago. For the better, I think.

Thursday, 15 February 2007

So, tonight was my first time at open mic night. I had a great time, I went with my brother and James to watch Chris perform. Only to find that I had been betrayed by my own sister.

I'm not a very romantic person, I tend to be incredibly sensible. Pretty much the only way through my defences is... erm... Brown Eyed Girl, by Van Morrison. I can't help it! Ben sang it once at Soul Survivor and I practically turned to goo. It's my kryptonite. And my beloved sister has served me up a kryptonite sandwich. She knows I've just started getting to know Chris, so (because she couldn't be there in person) she texted through a song request... yeah.

So I was there going bright red while Chris sang Brown Eyed Girl, which James found endearing enough to steal me a rose from the bar. Fortunately I was jammed into a corner where I couldn't see Chris, or it would have weakened me even more!I had fun singing along to anything and everything. Gutted I had to leave so early, really. The one thing I'm not so keen on, however, is how I smell of cigarette smoke... seriously, it's the most revolting smell in the world. They say nobody hates it as much as someone who's never smoked, so I suppose that's why.

If you're reading this, Judi, you are a very bad girl and I shall have serious words with you!

My life, my life is over, woe is me, etc. I know it's Valentine's day, I Don't Care. That is not what this is about.

This is about the Lost Experience! Last summer, I was utterly hooked on this 'optional extra' to the Lost series. Yes, I'm a Lost junkie. It was the main source of joy for me over those weeks, providing endless potential for detective work and fan-obsession. Ah, the many blogs that catalogued every last detail. The many fictional company websites. The thousands, no, MILLIONS of video clips that had to be painstakingly assembled in order to work out the plot. Even now I'm not entirely certain it's not real. Rachel Blake, if you're reading this, keep fighting Hanso! Don't give up!

The problem I'm having, this existential crisis of mine, has been brought on by the revelation that there will be no sequel. There. Will. Be. No. Sequel. The Lost Experience was completely open-ended, completely leaving the way open for a continuing storyline. In fact a sequel was not just possible, but practically NECESSARY.

Apparently there was too much criticism of TLE. Apparently people didn't like the pacing, the content, the plot. Apparently the number of fanon sites made it confusing. APPARENTLY they have completely FAILED to take into account the fact that I NEED closure! Not to mention something to obsess over this summer, to take the sting out of preparing for uni.

Tuesday, 13 February 2007

Mind you, I do find a certain smug satisfaction in the fact that this is technically meta-meta-blogging. And that that was meta-meta-meta blogging, etc. ad nauseum. See, that's why "meta" is so fun; just slam it in front of anything to make it obscure and elitist, which is always a laugh. Of course, I'm not the first to notice this, as you can see, in fact I've looked pretty thoroughly at that blog entry and I can't see anything even approaching a subject.

Sunday, 11 February 2007

On Sundays after church, I go home to my family's house for some much-needed family time. Normally this falls flat as my family all have their own things to do, but this week my sisters are both down from the mainland! It's been brilliant to see them both, and I would have loved to spend more time with them. We've had fun though. Judith and I came up with an entire prequel and sequel to the Labyrinth, one of our favourite films, not to mention completely dissecting it and reading far more meaning into it than was ever intended by its makers.

So right now, Naomi will probably be back in London, Michael is in bed, and everyone else is in the front room watching the meerkat equivalent of Big Brother. I'm waiting for Top Gear to start. I'm not entirely sure why I love TG so much, but I really do :)

So I have theology tomorrow... I think. I should really check that, since it means getting up at 7am and going to Southampton.

This is an awful lot more personal and detailed than most of the posts I've written lately. But as long as you promise not to stalk me, we're ok, right?

Friday, 9 February 2007

So I've been trawling through the archives of Questionable Content lately. Every now and again I find a new webcomic to look through, to see what I think, and hopefully get a few laughs on the way. This one is mainly about some indie-music-types, which has made me feel woefully inadequate as far as my musical education goes. I was thinking of tracking down some Mogwai, maybe getting into the scene from there... then I realised I would be doing it to make cartoon characters like me.

Yeah, so I won't be doing that.

Anyway! Gotta go, I'm off to work and pizza hut. Not at the same time.

Wednesday, 7 February 2007

I'm having a true creative splurge at the moment, the past couple of days have been really good for that... I think it's the music. I've been listening to local unsigned artists / groups who've put their music on myspace. If you've never tried this, I recommend it, you find some amazing stuff! So yeah, I've been playing these random songs by people I might conceivably meet one day, and it's inspiring me to write shedloads of poetry. Woo for that.

So, basically, you might be seeing more entries on my other blog (And, just because I'm a language geek, here are other words derived from the Greek muses.

Amuse, bemuse, music, museum, moustache.Maybe not so much that last one.

Tuesday, 6 February 2007

I'm really in a bad mood right now and I don't know what caused it. Little things went wrong at a youth group I help lead, and I felt unappreciated, and that annoying little narrator who lives inside my head got very angry.

The narrator has been swearing more lately. That is to say, I haven't been swearing any more than normal, but I've been thinking in bad language more often and I'm not entirely sure why... but it irritates me greatly because I wish I were perfect.

Oh no, Dave has had a bad day too. I hope we don't have an argument. Or feel unappreciated at each other. It could only end in extreme grouchiness and then apologies... by text... and I seriously have to cut back on my texting.What an odd thought to have.

I've fallen in love with this song... it's called Calliope, and it's beautiful, and it's here. The guy who wrote it, well, I've met him all of three times, but he's really nice and we get on pretty well. He was asking me about myself, and I mentioned that I write poetry... so he asked if I write epic poetry. Heh. It didn't occur to me at the time that it was a slightly unusual question, nobody really writes epic poetry any more... maybe I should try.Anyway, he randomly found me on myspace and I found these songs he'd written... and one of them, Calliope, enthrals me. Calliope is the chief muse of Greek mythology (I love Greek mythology so much), the muse of epic poetry. I thought that was interesting. Why did he ask me... what was he trying to find out really?And why write a song about Calliope in the first place? Three or four of the muses have some connection to music, but not her.

--- AAH!! EDIT! FRICKIN' EDIT, WHAT WAS I THINKING?! ---Sorry Deev, looks like I really don't have the guts. :( Shame on me.

The popular cartoonist and writer Scott Adams (you can check out his blog here) believes that free will is an illusion. He makes the argument that a random, purposeless event (the big bang) resulting in a random, purposeless universe, could not possibly create free will or genuine intelligence, but only creatures with instincts and 'predetermined' (not quite the right word) responses.

"People are every bit the machines as computers, but more complicatedand moist. The Big Bang created people, and is therefore the ultimateauthor of what we in turn create. (Remember, we have no free will.We’re just like the computer in that way.)"

I suppose this makes sense, in a way. Of course free will, creativity, and conscience can't have sprung out of nowhere as soon as humankind evolved. That would be a ridiculous thing to assert (and yet many, I'm sure, do). So this means one of two things.

1) We don't have free will, or any kind of real personality or special awareness,or2) The universe is more than sheer machinery, and creativity and conscience exist outside of ourselves in some form.

Scott Adams (a man I respect greatly, and hope never to have to debate with) ascribes to the first of these theories. But I find it problematic, to say the least. Descartes is most famous for asserting that we think therefore we am. Is. Are. Cogito ergo sum. You could argue from this standpoint that since we are capable of looking at the world and thinking about it, that we must be self-aware and must therefore have some sort of rational intellectual capabilities beyond that of mere survival instinct.

Personally, I think free will can't be an illusion. The moment we become aware of our thoughts, we can change them, so the simple fact that I know I can either go left or right means I am free to take either, regardless of nature, nurture, or what the weather's like. It's an entirely internal decision that I take at that moment.

It's quite sad, really, that atheism leads to the logical conclusion that not only does God not exist - but we don't, either, in any real sense. It makes sense though. Without a creative creator creating the creation, you as a person cannot exist. Cannot choose. Cannot feel.

I'm open to considering alternatives, of course, so please let me know if there's a flaw in my logic. I'd lie to know what you think.